Showing results by narrator "Edoardo Ballerini" in All Categories

In An Appeal to the World, His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet illuminates the way to peace in our time, arguing for a form of universal ethics that goes beyond religion – values we all share as humans that can help us create unity and peace to heal our world.

A lyrical and spellbinding story of love, loss, and war from a standout new voice in fiction. Katy Simpson Smith has already been acclaimed as an "heir apparent to to Michael Ondaatje and Marilynne Robinson." August 1793. On the hot, humid coast of North Carolina, nine-year-old Tabitha fills her pockets with fish bones and shells, to bring the ocean back to her room. The act, perhaps, of a child conceived at sea.

Central Park is perhaps the most well-trod and familiar green space in the country. It is both a refuge from the city and Manhattan's very heart; a respite from the urban grind and a hive of activity all its own. Eight hundred forty-three carefully planned acres allow some 37 million visitors each year to come and get lost in a sense of nature. Unsurprisingly, the park also inspires a wealth of great writing, and here Andrew Blauner collects some of the finest fiction and nonfiction - 20 pieces in all.

The Glorious Ones travel the length and breadth of seventeenth-century Italy, playing commedia dell'arte in the streets and palaces with equal vigor. Founded by the ingenious madman Flamino Scala, the small company of players endures kidnappings and passionate affairs, cabals, riots, and disgrace - all manner of triumph and hardship. Pantalone the miser, sunny Armanda the dwarf, gossip-loving Columbina, and evil-minded Brighella, view their myriad shared adventures through markedly different eyes.

Imagine that your father is one of New York City’s top gangsters, and that you want nothing to do with him or his criminal empire. Now imagine he’s been murdered...and the only person who gives a damn is you. Meet Mat Lawrence, a stand-up guy who’s got one thing on his mind: revenge. The last place Mat wants to go is back to New York, but that’s where the killers are, and he won’t stop until they’re dead...or he is. And there’s only one man who can help him track them down: his father’s criminal attorney - the Mouthpiece.

From the rugged mudflats of the Northwestern frontier to a rusting strip mall, West of Here is a conversation between two epochs. In his eagerly awaited second novel, Jonathan Evison tells the stories of the people who first inhabited the mythical town of Port Bonita in Washington State from 1887-1891. Moving ahead more than a century to 2005-06, he introduces those who live there now and must deal with the damage done by their predecessors.

In Domenica Ruta’s profoundly original novel, the end of the world comes once a year. Every May 28, humanity gathers to anticipate the planet’s demise - and to celebrate as if the day is truly its last. On this holiday, three intersecting sets of characters embark on a possibly last-chance quest for redemption. With sparkling wit, verbal ingenuity, and wild imagination, Ruta has created an alternate world in which an ancient holiday brings into stark reflection our deepest dreams, desires, hopes, and fears.

Paolo the dachshund is trapped. Although he lives in Rome, a city filled with history and adventure, he is confined to a hair salon. Paolo dreams of the sweet life - la dolce vita - in the Eternal City. And then, one day, he escapes! Paolo throws himself into the city, finding adventure at every turn. Join our hero as he discovers the wonders of Rome: the ruins, the food, the art, the opera, and - of course - the cats. Everyone will cheer the daring of this bighearted dog, whose story shows that even the smallest among us can achieve great things.

February 1939. Europe teeters on the brink of war. In a Hell’s Kitchen bar, Charles Mossman is reeling from the loss of his job and the demise of his marriage. His estranged wife and their six-year-old daughter, Emma, now live in a quiet brownstone in a German-speaking New York City neighborhood where support for Hitler is common. Charles, just out of prison, struggles to put his life back together, while across the hall from his family, a kindly Swiss couple have taken a liking to Emma. But Charles begins to suspect that they might not be who they say they are.

Dominic Smith’s The Electric Hotel winds through the nascent days of cinema in Paris and Fort Lee, New Jersey - America’s first movie town - and on the battlefields of Belgium during World War I. A sweeping work of historical fiction, it shimmers between past and present as it tells the story of the rise and fall of a prodigious film studio and one man’s doomed obsession with all that passes in front of the viewfinder.

Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Jon Meacham offers a collection of inspiring words about how to be a good citizen, from Thomas Jefferson and others, and reminds us why our country’s founding principles are still so important today.

On the surface, Cosimo Garibaldi is young, handsome, charming, and somewhat naïve, considering he's a member of a royal family. Given his looks and his pedigree, he is rarely at a loss for admirers. Then he meets Megan Walker, an American humanities professor vacationing in Paris who seems both unaware of his status and immune to his charms. Cosimo finds her aloofness refreshing as well as challenging, so he does his best to win her over.

Amy O’Sullivan finds an invitation to a masquerade dinner party in her refrigerator, balanced atop a bottle of pinot grigio. If she accepts the invitation, Amy will be picked up by a limousine. She and four competing strangers must wear masks to the party. The winner will receive a choice of either 50,000 dollars cash or a free murder of anyone the winner designates.

Tim Beckdolt, rangy and self-reliant, is as American as the frontier itself. But after spending eight treacherous months digging $175,000 in gold out of Desperation Peak - all he has left is desperation. Two sadistic strangers have taken his gold, and now they want to take his life. He's on the run - the target of a Devil’s Manhunt.

A classic of American literature from a Nobel Prize winning author, The Sound and the Fury is widely considered to be one of the best novels of the twentieth century. William Faulkner expertly illustrates the epic and tragic story of the Compson family, three generations of Southern aristocrats on the brink of ruin. Unprecedented for its time, Faulkner weaves a tale spanning nearly two decades, told from multiple points of view in a style all its own.

In the story "The Muse," celebrated novelist Mark Davis unexpectedly returns from his travels, surprising his wife and compelling her to discreetly send their houseguest, Victor, out of their home to avoid exposing their secret affair. Upon Mark's arrival, Victor is summoned for a meeting where discussions of fate, destiny, and a mysterious journal Mark refers to as the Muse, unfold.

When an unsuspecting scientist and explorer discovers “The Red One,” a totem worshipped by headhunting natives, his fate is sealed.

In a Philippines of desperate beauty and rank corruption, two seemingly unrelated events occur: the discovery of an ancient lost tribe living in a remote mountainous area and the arrival of a celebrity-studded, American film crew, there to make an epic Vietnam War movie. But the lost tribe may be a clever hoax and the Hollywood movie seems doomed as the cast and crew continue to self-destruct in a cloud of drugs and ego.

When you’re building something that’s never been done before, there’s no roadmap. You’re responsible for meeting the needs of your team, clients, and partners…and of course, your investors and board members. You’re juggling growth targets, internal misalignment, and raising capital—often all at once. And the whole time, you’re deeply aware of the pressure from all sides. Your drive to push forward—to build, solve, and create—is unstoppable, but it can often feel like everything is on your shoulders, and you’re hiking up a steep mountain buried in a fog.

An epic poem for children of all ages, Here Come the Nothing Heads tells the tale of Sneezy McSneezerson, Grouchy McGroucherson, and Fluffy McFlufferson, who live in the fanciest pumpkin high atop Pumpkin Ridge, but they are banished by town elders because they can't get along with each other or anyone else. They must travel to Happy Hollow, home of the mysterious tribe of Nothing Heads, and learn how to live in peace. The trials and tribulations of their adventure force them to look at life in a brand new way that was as old as time itself.